SIT to challenge Gujarat HC`s bail to Maya Kodnani before SC

Ahmedabad: The Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT), which had probed the 2002 Naroda Patiya riot case, will challenge the Gujarat High Court order granting bail to former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani.

"We will file an application before Gujarat High Court tomorrow seeking a stay on their order to challenge it before the Supreme Court," Special Public Prosecutor P G Desai of the SIT told PTI.

Kodnani, the former Minister for Women and Child Development in the then Narendra Modi-led Gujarat government, was granted bail on Wednesday by a division bench of the Gujarat High Court on "medical grounds".

Desai said that even if the SIT does not get a stay on the Gujarat High Court`s order, it could still be challenged in the Supreme Court.
"If High Court will not grant a stay on the order, we will move the Supreme Court. We will seek sanction from the Gujarat state government and we will move ahead," Desai said.

SIT has been investigating nine cases related to Godhra and post-Godhra riots where more than a 1,000 people were killed.

Kodnani is the the first convict to get bail in the Naroda Patiya riots case. She is also the first woman to be convicted in one of the post-Godhra riots cases.
In August 2012, a Special SIT court had awarded life imprisonment to then BJP MLA Maya Kodnani, Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi and 29 others for their alleged roles in the 2002 riots here at Naroda Patiya, where 97 people were brutally killed.

The court had named Kodnani, a minister in the former
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi`s cabinet, as "a kingpin of riots" in the Naroda area and sentenced her to 28 years` imprisonment.

Kodnani was the MLA of Naroda during the time of riots. She was made Minister of State for Women and Child Development in 2007. She had to resign from her post after her arrest.

The massacre had taken place a day after the Godhra train burning incident of February 27, 2002.